mercer of London, w h o served the office of Lord Mayor three times, the last time in 1419." " J o h n T h o m a s " never left Melbourne to be chimed back by the church bells, promising him future greatness; and, though charitable and church-going in his way, he never founded almshouses or colleges. Born at Sydney in 1816, John T h o m a s Smith arrived, a youth, in Melbourne, and became assistant teacher at the Church of England Aboriginal Missionary School, established in 1837, on a portion of the n o w Botanical Gardens. After clerking for some time in the employment of Mr. John Hodgson he went into business, and kept a store and yvoodyard in Collins Street, near the centre of the present "Block." H e next betook himself to the keeping of public-houses in Little Flinders and Queen Streets, knoyvn as the Adelphi, and St. John's Tavern. H e built a theatre, gradually acquired m u c h property, and yvas yvhat might be termed a monied man. H e yvas thefirstschoolmaster in Melbourne, and at an early period was associated with Freemasonry, and reached the highest official position in that fraternity. With the exception of an interval of a few months, he remained connected with the City Council to the time of his death in 1878, at yvhich period he was " Father" of the Corporation and the Legislative Assembly, as the senior m e m b e r of both. For a brief term he held the portfolio of Minister of Mines. In one respect M r . Smith out-did Sir Richard Whittington, for he yvas elected Mayor of Melbourne seven times ; and as President of the City Council, and Police Magistrate of Melbourne, he brought to the performance of what yvere sometimes very onerous duties, an amount of shrewdness, energy, and strong c o m m o n sense, certainly not surpassed by any m a n w h o ever held the same positions. N o n e of the early Mayors spent so m u c h money in charitable purposes, private and public; and there yvere some years when the calls on Mayor Smith's benevolence were numerous and pressing. Sir Richard Whittington's n a m e is handed down to us with a legendary cat in his train, but M r . John T h o m a s Smith has associated with his n a m e one ofthe first veritable British-born asses that brayed in the colony. In 1858, as Mayor of Melbourne, he was delegated by the City Council to present an Address to the Queen on the occasion of the marriage of the Princess Royal, and, accordingly, he sped away to London, big yvith hope of returning yvith a Patent of Knighthood in his pocket. In this he yvas disappointed ; but he yvas accompanied by an assinine shipmate, whose presence was so familiarized in the public mind that no play-yvright would, up to Smith's death, venture to place on the Melbourne stage a Christmas pantomime without a reserved place in it for "John Thomas's donkey."
This exhausts the list of Mayors with w h o m I have to deal. It was said that one of them had m u c h difficulty in mastering the orthography of " City," and that another, w h o had a seat in Parliament, had such a horror of trying to spell the word, that he always revenged himself by knocking an "eye out of it;" but there was a modern Mayor in the Lower House, who was so economical of his ss's, that he could never afford more than one of them when spelling "Assembly;" yet by an amusing extravagance he always gave more than one "leg" to the Upper House, yvhich he invariably yvrote " Leg's'islative Council." A certain modern Mayor once took it into his yvise head to submit it to a course of private tuition for the acquisition of French and Latin phrases. Singular to say, with the " parlez vous" he got on moderately yvell, but the R o m a n classics yvere to him impenetrable. In the two well-knoyvn phrases, " a priori " and " a posteriori," he found a Scylla and a Charybdis, only that instead of steering safely between two dangers, or getting swamped by one of them, he became enmeshed in both. His tongue could never grapple yvith the pronunciation, though so m u c h easier than the Parisian; and causes and effect yvere, yvith him, convertible terms. Besides, he had an unalterable conviction that " a priori" meant his "ancestors"— those w h o yvent before him ; and " a posteriori " his "posterity ;" and his free translation of both phrases was " from father to son."
Considering the convivial usages of the era in which they reigned, the old Mayors were a comparatively steady set of men. At public entertainments there was m u c h more "business" done in the drinking line than now, and one of them might occasionally become "slightly elevated." Once a Civic chief when the serious part of a public dinner yvas over, and a "free-and-easiness" set in, jumped upon the table, and treated the remnant of the company to a few turns of a Highland Fling; but it will hardly be contended that this was as excessive a post-prandial feat as travelling homeyvard in the " w e e sma' hours," through the public streets, in the van of a saveloy engine. And now for a few remarks (currente calamo) anent
